It's kind of funny how things change as time passes. This blog started out as a way to share my knitting. There was almost exclusively knitting content with a little family stuff thrown in along the way. My family is my life and all this other crafting stuff is really just an outlet for me. A way for me to relax and to sometimes challenge myself, but on my own terms and in the time I decide to allot to it. Anyway, I lost my knitting mojo for these past few months. I think it might have something to do with all the holiday knitting I did. Six blankets - 5 of them fully cover twin beds and the sixth one is queen size - kind of did me in. I did not have any desire to really knit anymore. So....this space turned into a cross stitch space - I love cross stitch and it was the first handcraft besides sewing that I learned.
Well...enter the
2011 Kalendar KAL. It is right up my alley. A lace shawl and it is a mystery - the clues will be released one at a time - I simply love these KAL's. They are so much fun!! The first two clues have been released already with the third one coming on the 21st of this month. This totally renewed my knitting mojo!! I went right up to Uncommon Threads and bought the right amount of lace weight yarn. Isn't that such a great color?!! It is so soft too. Then I immediately tried to cast on.....
This is clue one complete. It took me HOURS and many, many tried to get this cast on circularly. I tried to cast on the regular way I usually do with hats - No Go - I just couldn't keep everything straight. After I tried that method a few times, I decided that maybe I didn't want to do the square shawl, maybe I just wanted to do the triangular one. I cast on for that and completed clue one - well, I have done triangular shawls and rectangular shawls, but not one that is square and I knew that I just had to make this one square. I promptly ripped out all my work and tried again my way to cast on - No Way. It Was Not Going To Work At All! Then I tried to crochet a circle like the tip on
NeverFrog Blog but that didn't work for me either - I tried that a few times. Then I tried
fleegle's way - I tried this many times - not working. I was so very frustrated - Why Couldn't I do This????? Then I tried the picture tutorial of
Emily Ocker's Cast On - I was simply shocked. It Worked!!! I felt great!! And clue one was completed in no time.
I just completed clue 2 and couldn't be happier. Well, I guess I'd be happier if I had clue 3 to work on now, but I can wait. And I learned something new! I am pretty jazzed.
Katie the Kangaroo - the March 1st Dishcloth from the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo Group.
And lest you think I am shirking my fishing duties, here are 17 more fish. I have definitely slowed way down from completing one a day and now am just making one every two or three days, but I am still plugging away at them. This brings the total up to 85 - only 5 more and I am half way done with the knitting.
It's kind of cool to drop the ends of my threads in and watch the beautiful color changes! 
I finished clue 3 of the 2011 KALendar mystery shawl. I am really liking this knit and also knitting from a chart once again. I had forgotten how fun it is to see your stitches take shape like this. 
We had the option to add beads or nupps. I chose to do both. I was having an awful time with the nupps. I found a way that worked for me where on the row that I had to knit all those little stitches together, I used a size US0 needle - that worked, but was really slow. Then on ravelry, one of the other knitters knitting this shawl posted a link to a youtube video for the Easy Peasy Nupp! This method worked wonders for me and is how I finished up the nupps without going stark raving mad. 
It is now big enough to move it to circular needles which is what I did and I have actually been working on clue 4 so am a little farther than this picture shows. It's so nice to be knitting something a little challenging and to be learning something new in my knitting!! 
